


Fall Down At Your Door

by Leonawriter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zack Lives, Before Crisis events referenced, F/M, but not in detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: He somehow makes it all thew way into Midgar, and all the way to the church, Cloud in tow, before collapsing. And when he wakes up, he sees pink.





	Fall Down At Your Door

Zack's still half carrying, half dragging Cloud along with him when he shoulders the doors to the Sector Five church open. He manages enough steps that they're halfway to the flowers before the events of the past few days-

_past few years, mako green swimming in front of his eyes, time passing them by, and then it's green fields, and he still doesn't know how much time has gone by_

-full of wondering how the troops he was  _sure_ he'd seen in the truck's path had just vanished like that, as if they'd just wandered off somewhere on a whim.

Packed with racing from street corner to darkened alley to empty house, trying to evade the military that he hadn't realised was so  _big._ Was  _everywhere._

But now here he was, and the light streaming through the hole in the roof - a hold he'd made, or was it that he'd fallen through something that had already been there, he wondered? - felt like home.

He falls, as if in slow motion, unable from one moment to the next to be able to hold up Cloud's weight.

He never feels his face hit the wood of the church floor.

Doesn't hear Aerith gasp as she comes in through the door, some time later.

...

It's dark when he wakes up, and not just because it's night. There's something heavy and scratchy over his face, but it comes away easily enough when he tugs at it.

When he can see again, his eyes are filled with auburn hair and green eyes-

_her green eyes, not the ones that now_ _haunted his nightmares and made him wake up with tears on his face because even this long after everything had happened, he still couldn't understand_

-and pink, so much pink.

He sits up, trying to ignore the aches and pains and bruises and injuries they'd already been able to get on him before he'd slipped away.

"I think they're looking for you," she says, and it makes his heart hurt and his eyes sting just to hear her  _voice._  "So I decided I wouldn't let them find you if I could help it. I'm not sure how well I fooled Tseng, but - where've you  _been_ _?_ I waited - I waited so  _long."_

He opens his mouth to say something, explain,  _something,_ and there's just too much.

He's finally here, and he can't say a thing.

Instead, the tears start to fall. Just like the last time. He'd tried  _so hard_ to save them all, and he didn't think he'd been able to do anything for any of them, in the end.

Aerith didn't push. She opened her arms, and held him just like she had before, and he felt  _safe._

...

He only realises that Cloud is missing when he asks Aerith where his friend is, and she says that she doesn't know what he means, that there'd been no one else in the church when she'd found him.

He hates himself, even though he knows he shouldn't, even though he couldn't have stopped Cloud from walking off or someone from  _taking_ him if he'd been unconscious himself.

Briefly, he wonders how Genesis is doing, remembering the state he'd left the older ex-SOLDIER First in, but can't allow himself the luxury of letting his mind wander too long on something he can't change or affect, when in the here and now, Cloud needs him.

Aerith stops him from leaving the church, reminding him that they were still out there, still looking for him.

She promises to look for Cloud for him, and he remembers a promise to make a promise every time they met, and although he hates not being able to  _do_ anything, he agrees.

...

Days go by, and still no sign, still no word. Surely, he thinks, it shouldn't be that hard to find one blond country bumpkin in a SOLDIER uniform who's still recovering from mako poisoning, right?

"I'll try asking someone else tomorrow," Aerith says, and he can only nod while he paces.

They feel the vibrations of an explosion even from Sector Five, and Aerith later tells him that it'd been on the news that a terrorist group had blown up one of the reactors.  _AVALANCHE_ , she says, and it makes Zack come out in a cold sweat-

_black SOLDIER uniforms and faces he knew but they just weren't there anymore, laughing and laughing even as they tried to kill him right up until they were dying and he couldn't save them, not really, but at least they'd known who they were at the end_

-hoping against hope that Cloud hadn't ended up drawn into whatever was going on, that he wouldn't see  _Cloud's_ face the same way he remembered Essai and Sebastian's having gone.

Zack had been forced to raise his sword -  _Angeal's sword_ \- against too many of his friends already. He didn't think he could take one more.

He swallows down a cry of frustration, holds himself back from hitting anything, hurting anything, and works the energy and the fear off by pacing the far end of the church and the familiar routine of squats, but none of it makes him any more  _calm._  

...

There's another explosion, and Zack tenses, only relaxing somewhat when Aerith puts her hand on his arm.

He hadn't even realised that he'd put his hand to his sword before that. But it isn't as though the past year hadn't given him enough reason to think that loud noises meant that he'd be having to defend himself.

It isn't long before he's put fully on his guard again, though. 

Something crashes through the roof, dust and debris flying to the point where for a good few moments he's levelling the buster sword at whoever - or whatever - it was that had fallen onto Aerith's flowers.

There's no motion, however. And Aerith shakes her head and walks over to see, and waves him over, saying that whoever they were, they seemed to be alive but unconscious.

He nearly drops his sword when he sees who it is. He  _does_ lean it very carefully, very quickly, against a pew.

There was no mistaking that mess of blond hair

"That's him," he finds himself gasping out, "that's him! It's  _Cloud."_

_..._

Zack makes sure he's there when Cloud wakes up, is worried to see the way his friend reacts. Worries Cloud might have a concussion, when he keeps complaining of a headache.

"Z...ack?" He smiles encouragingly, and nods not for the first or last time, it looks like. "It's really you. It's really real. When I woke up, you were- I thought..."

He shoves Cloud's shoulder, just lightly on the side where he'd lost his shoulder guard.

"Aw, come on. I'm not that easy to get rid of." He grins, unable to help himself. "It's good to have you back, buddy."

Cloud looks away, mumbles something, and for once Zack's sure his enhanced hearing must've failed on him, even if his sight hasn't, because he's pretty sure he can see a spattering of red on those too-pale cheeks of his.

"What was that?"

Aerith giggled, and the red crept higher. Zack started to suspect he hadn't misheard at all.

"I sorta told Tifa I was a SOLDIER like you and I might've helped get us all into a lot of trouble. I didn't tell them I _was_ you, though," Cloud added quickly, as if that made things any  _better_.

"So," Aerith said, once the embarrassment and laughter had worn off a little, "does this mean I have two bodyguards now instead of just one?"

Zack puts a hand to his heart in mock pain.

"Cloud, I'm  _demoted_. Whoever said absence makes the heart grow fonder never spent five years away from Aerith. You come back and you go from boyfriend to bodyguard."

Cloud huffs out a surprised laugh, and Zack wonders if it's the first he's had since waking up from his coma.

...

" _Huh...._ so this is where you'd all ended up. We were startin' to wonder, y'know? All that effort we put in." 

Aerith, Zack thinks, is the only one who looks calm, and in his opinion she looks  _too_ calm. Or maybe he's misreading her and she's just dealt with enough Turks to not think she should be intimidated by Reno.

"All  _what_ effort you put in? I made it this far, didn't I?"

Reno snorts, rolls his eyes,  _laughs._  

"Yeah, you damn well did. Funny how you had a clear path. Shame we got called off to something more important, or we'd have given you a right welcome, too. Should thank Tseng and Cissnei for that. But, hey! That's then and this is now. Nothing personal, yo?"

Still confused, Zack's grip on his sword tightens.

 _Nothing personal_ , he thinks.  _You're just finishing the job. It never was the army I had to worry about, like I thought._

They get away again, though, and Reno's words rattle around in his head for far too long, until they're forgotten in place of other, more important and more terrifying things.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I'm going to add more to this, but - this is the one ship that I really *ship* here, and I might do some AU scenes from main game canon just because this means I *can*. 'Cause, all I needed was the foundation work for anything to make sense.
> 
> And there's never enough Zack Lives AUs.


End file.
